A Cage Made of Love

I'm the CEO of a publicly traded company, and I'm worth three billion dollars. Ten years ago, I dumped my broke boyfriend Ethan Shaw and left for Wall Street. Everyone said Vivian Quinn was cold-blooded and ruthless, a maniac who only cared about money. Then a car accident somehow transported me into another world. I woke up as a penniless housewife! Ethan Shaw, the ex who should have hated my guts, was suddenly my husband! And there was a five-year-old son tagging along. What a joke. How could I ever fall for a freeloader who spent all day in the kitchen or a pint-size boy who spent every day clinging to my leg? But just as I was determined to find my way back, I realized something wasn't right. Chapter 1 The moment I opened my eyes, I was lying on a soft but cheap bed. The air was thick with the smell of... instant noodles. A fuzzy little head leaned in close, and a pair of eyes that looked exactly like my first love Ethan Shaw's studied me with curiosity. "Mommy, you're awake! If you'd slept any longer, Daddy was gonna throw out all my superhero cards." I sat bolt upright and looked around. A cramped bedroom. Clothes everywhere. Superhero posters on the wall. And a huge wedding portrait. The man beaming in the photo was Ethan Shaw. And the woman beside him, grinning like an idiot in a cheap wedding dress, was me. I rushed to the bathroom. The woman in the mirror had sallow skin, deep dark circles under her eyes, and hair that looked like a bird's nest. It was still my face, but the skin, the energy... it was a world apart from the me I knew. Me, Vivian Quinn, a woman whose eye cream alone cost over a thousand dollars a bottle, reduced to this haggard mess? This was worse than death. "Viv, are you okay? Does your head still hurt?" Ethan walked in wearing a ridiculous pink apron, carrying a bowl of noodles, worry written all over his face. I looked at him, then down at the noodles in his hands. "What is this?" "Your favorite! Deluxe seafood instant noodles. I even added two eggs and a hot dog." He was practically begging for praise. I nearly blacked out. In my real world, my breakfast was a custom meal prepared by a three-star Michelin chef, calibrated down to the calorie. And now my "husband" was handing me a bowl of instant noodles with two eggs, calling it "deluxe." What fresh hell was this? I pushed him away and stumbled toward the door, shouting, "This isn't real! I need to go back! I need my penthouse, my lawyer, my assistant!" Ethan grabbed me from behind and held on tight, his voice urgent. "Viv, calm down! You don't have a penthouse, a lawyer, or an assistant. You're just a regular housewife!" The more he said it, the harder I fought. A regular housewife? Give me a break! Ethan dragged me back and pressed me down onto the couch. He pulled out a family photo album and turned the pages one by one. "Look, this was our graduation trip. You said you'd never marry anyone but me." "This was our wedding. It was simple, but you said you were so happy." "And this was when Jamie was born. You were holding him, crying even louder than he was." The me in those photos was smiling so genuinely, so happily. The kind of smile I hadn't worn once in ten years on Wall Street. Something inside me wavered. Could it be? Was I really sick? Had I imagined that I was some high-powered CEO? Jamie Shaw, the little guy, wrapped himself around my leg and asked timidly, "Mommy, don't you want me anymore?" I looked at that little face, so much like Ethan's, and something deep inside me ached. Before I knew it, I was shaking my head. "No. Mommy would never leave you." In that moment, I decided to accept this absurd reality. For now. Maybe it was just a dream that felt too real. The first step in accepting this reality was learning how to be a mom. Ethan said he had to go teach at the university. Before he left, he reminded me a dozen times to drop Jamie off at preschool. Me, a woman who could close multimillion-dollar deals without breaking a sweat, completely defeated by the task of dressing a five-year-old. "Mommy, you put my socks on inside out." "Mommy, why is your lipstick in my backpack?" I was a complete mess, fumbling through every step. By the time I finally got Jamie onto the school bus, I was as exhausted as if I'd just survived an eight-hour funding negotiation. On my way back inside, a neighbor stopped me. "Your husband's really something, dear. A college professor, and he still managed to get you a house like this." I glanced at the townhouse, twenty-one hundred square feet at most, then back at the genuine envy on her face. I was lost in thought. A professor's salary could cover a townhouse in this neighborhood? Were prices in this world really that affordable? Chapter 2 Before long, I faced my first social crisis in this world. Ethan's "mother," Diane, also known as my "mother-in-law," called on video chat. The moment I picked up, a sharp, pinched face filled the entire screen. "Vivian! You fed Ethan instant noodles again, didn't you? I'm warning you, if anything happens to my son, you'll answer to me!" I froze. In my real world, I was the one doing the yelling. "I'm warning you, don't think having a son makes you special. You've still got housework to do and a child to raise! Ethan works himself to the bone supporting this family!" Her voice was shrill enough to pierce glass. My first instinct was to hang up and have my legal team send her a cease-and-desist. But then I remembered: I was "housewife Vivian" now. I took a deep breath and forced a smile that probably looked worse than crying. "I understand, Diane." After I hung up, I wanted to cry from the sheer injustice of it. When Ethan came home and saw my red-rimmed eyes, he panicked. The second I told him what happened, he grabbed his phone. "I'm calling her right now. She's not going to talk to you like that again." Watching him stand up for me, the hurt melted away just like that. I started trying to fit into this world. I tried cooking, though I nearly blew up the kitchen at first. I tried cleaning, though I smashed Ethan's favorite vase. I tried picking Jamie up from preschool, though the first time I went to the wrong classroom and brought home a chubby little boy named Benny, which nearly got me killed by his parents. Ethan was endlessly patient with me. When I wrecked the kitchen, he quietly cleaned up the mess and then walked me through it step by step. When I broke the vase, he just said, "It's only a vase. You're okay, and that's what matters." When I brought home the wrong kid, he apologized to the parents while shielding me behind him, then told me gently, "It's fine. Now we know: Jamie's in the Sunbeam class, not the Sunshine class." Looking at his gentle profile, I thought, if this is a dream, I never want to wake up. Then came the day I went to Jamie's preschool family field day. A woman who claimed to be my "best friend" rolled up in a hot-pink Maserati. Her name was Fiona Blake, and the second she saw me, she threw her arms around me. "Viv! Oh my God, I've missed you so much! Where's Ethan? Didn't he come with you?" I looked at her head-to-toe designer outfit, then down at my twenty-dollar T-shirt. I felt completely out of place. How did this version of me end up with a best friend this rich? Fiona was a nonstop talker. She cheered Jamie on with me while gossiping nonstop. "You have no idea. My husband's never home. Ethan's the one you lucked out with. He's a family man, and he treats you like a queen. Literally the perfect husband." I gave her a half-hearted smile. The last event was a three-legged race. Fiona and I were paired together. Halfway through, she twisted her ankle and went sprawling face-first into the ground. I hurried to help her up, but she was wincing in pain. "I can't, I can't! Viv, I think I sprained my ankle! Quick, check if my limited-edition shoes are scuffed!" I stared at her. I crouched down, pretending to check her ankle, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something small on her waist. A walkie-talkie. My heart skipped a beat. "Why do you have a walkie-talkie?" Chapter 3 A flash of panic crossed Fiona's face. She quickly covered it with her shirt. "Oh, that?" she said with a nervous laugh. "It's my son's toy. I was in a rush and forgot to take it off." She was sweating from the pain, and I figured she was just out of it. I believed her. After field day, Fiona parked herself at my house and refused to leave. She commandeered my couch and ordered Ethan around like a personal servant. "Ethan, peel me an apple. I want it shaped like a bunny." "Ethan, I'm thirsty. I want freshly ground coffee. No sugar, no cream." And Ethan did it all without a single complaint. I sat there watching this bizarre scene, feeling like a stranger in my own home. That night, while Ethan was cooking in the kitchen, Fiona leaned in close and whispered, "Viv, I need to tell you a secret." "Your husband might be seeing someone." My stomach dropped. "What are you talking about?" "I'm not making it up." She pulled out her phone and showed me a photo. "Look, I took this yesterday. He was at a cafe with some woman, talking and laughing." The photo was blurry. All I could make out was Ethan's profile and the back of a woman sitting across from him. My heart sank. In this world where I had nothing, Ethan was everything. If he was cheating on me... I couldn't finish the thought. I started losing sleep. I secretly went through Ethan's phone. There was nothing suspicious in his call log or messages. I followed him. His daily routine was just home and the university, nothing else. I was acting like a paranoid mess. Ethan picked up on it quickly. That night, he held me in his arms and asked softly, "Viv, what's going on? Are you still upset about what my mom said?" Looking into his earnest eyes, I almost blurted out everything Fiona had told me. But I swallowed the words. What if it was just a misunderstanding? I shook my head. "It's nothing. I just haven't been sleeping well." He sighed and pulled a small box from the nightstand drawer. "I bought this with my bonus this month. It's for you." I opened it. Inside was a necklace. Nothing fancy. "I know it's not designer, but..." I kissed him before he could finish. To hell with the suspicion. To hell with the betrayal. I just wanted him. That night, Jamie spiked a fever in the middle of the night. A hundred and four degrees. Ethan and I were terrified. We rushed him to the hospital in the dead of night. The emergency room was packed. We waited forever before a doctor could see us. The doctor said he needed to be admitted for observation. I sat by Jamie's hospital bed, watching his flushed little face, my heart breaking. That was when it hit me: I already loved this boy I'd "inherited" as if he were my own flesh and blood. Ethan went to handle the admission paperwork. I stayed with Jamie. He opened his eyes groggily, gripped my hand, and whispered, "Mommy, don't go." Tears sprang to my eyes. I squeezed his hand. "Mommy's not going anywhere. I'm right here." That was when I heard an argument outside the room. It was Ethan and a nurse. "The regular ward is too noisy. Move us to suite V801," Ethan said in a low voice. "Of course, Mr. Shaw. Suite V801 is always held for you—" A sharp cough from Ethan cut her off. "Held for me? You've got the wrong person!" Ethan's voice dropped, a warning edge creeping in. "What I said was, even if I have to sell everything I own and borrow the rest, my son is getting the best private room." The nurse seemed startled and stammered out a correction. "S-sorry, wrong person, sir. Suite V801 is very expensive. The deposit alone is three thousand dollars..." I sat frozen by the bed. The way the nurse said that suite was being held for him, and the way Ethan had instantly scrambled to cover it up... something felt deeply off. This wasn't the Ethan I knew, the one who had to wait for a bonus check just to buy a necklace. He was supposed to be a broke professor. So why was a hospital holding a private suite in his name? Chapter 4 Jamie's illness passed as quickly as it came. By the next day, he was bouncing off the walls and ready to go home. Ethan went to handle the discharge paperwork. Fiona had heard Jamie was sick and volunteered to pick us up. She was extra attentive today. While helping me get Jamie into his jacket, she casually set her phone on the bedside table. The screen lit up with a few new messages. I was about to tell her to grab her phone when my gaze happened to fall on the screen. It was a group chat titled: Project: Awaken Vivian Quinn (Phase One). Someone had posted: @Fiona, Mr. Shaw says you overdid the crying yesterday. Keep it toned down when you pick them up today. My blood ran cold. A second later, Fiona turned and saw the lit screen too. Her face went white. She lunged for the phone, snatched it up, and forced a laugh. "Ha, just some annoying sales group. They're always spamming nonsense..." I stood there holding Jamie, frozen to the bone, but I didn't call her out. Not yet. In that moment, everything clicked. The walkie-talkie. The suite held in his name. None of it was a coincidence. Ethan came back from the front desk and saw my ashen face. "What's wrong, Viv?" I looked at him, and for the first time, he felt like a complete stranger. I began investigating. Quietly. One day, I made an excuse to go out and rented a computer at a gaming cafe. Out of habit, I pulled up the NASDAQ live ticker. But the candlestick charts had a subtle lag in their movements, and at certain points, the patterns repeated in ways that were too regular. I tried logging into my old work email. The page just kept showing "Server not found." Using what little I knew about network infrastructure, I opened a terminal and pinged several overseas public IP addresses. Every single one timed out. Staring at screen after screen of "Request timed out," I arrived at a conclusion that made my skin crawl. This area, the very place I was breathing in, was not connected to the outside world at all. It was a massive, artificially sealed local network! Every website, every news article, every stock feed I'd seen was pre-loaded mirror data stored on local servers. Inside this airtight version of The Truman Show, there was one crack in the facade. The PC at the cafe owner's register had a USB cellular modem with its own connection to the outside internet, something he'd set up so he could secretly play online games. While he was outside smoking, I slipped behind the counter and opened a real search engine. With trembling hands, I typed my name into the search bar: Vivian Quinn. The moment I hit Enter, headline after headline flooded the screen, stinging my eyes. PROMINENT WALL STREET EXECUTIVE VIVIAN QUINN MISSING THREE MONTHS, SUSPECTED KIDNAPPING BILLIONAIRE CEO VANISHES WITHOUT TRACE; INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY QUINN ENTERPRISES IN TURMOIL; THREE-MILLION-DOLLAR REWARD FOR MISSING CEO Staring at the missing-person photo on screen, my own face in a sharp tailored suit, my blood went cold. I wasn't some housewife who had lost her memory in a car crash and built a loving life with her husband. I had been stolen. Ripped right out of my real life. The world I thought I'd crossed into, the warmth I thought I'd found... all of it was fake. This was a massive, custom-built movie set, made just for me! When I heard him stub out his cigarette and start back toward the door, I closed the browser and slipped back to my seat in the corner. Sitting in the dim glow of the monitor, I bit down hard on my lip and smiled. I kept smiling until the tears came. I wasn't losing my mind. I'd been played. Completely.